Grasping at straws in the aftermath of the storm

Having become a self-made billionaire by virtue of starting his own media company before running for mayor of one of the world’s great cities and winning, Michael Bloomberg hasn’t had much experience in admitting he’s wrong. So he doesn’t do contrite very well.

It’s true that, as what has to be the most difficult week of his mayoralty comes to a close, he has been less prickly than he was just after the blizzard. By Wednesday, he was finally conceding that the city’s response to the storm had not been what New Yorkers have come to expect.

That’s putting it mildly, to say the least. But at least he has come off the high horse from which he chastised New Yorkers for their own response to the storm earlier in the week.

But if his tone had improved, his attempts to explain what went wrong were still weak. In fact, he has tried out a number of explanations during this week, each less satisfactory than the previous one.

After seeming to blame the behavior of New Yorkers themselves for many of the storm-related problems and then blaming private contractors for refusing to hire on for emergency snow removal, the mayor by Wednesday still seemed to be grasping at straws.

“The truth of the matter is the topography makes cleaning streets harder. That is certainly the case in parts of Staten Island where you have small, winding streets. In some cases, it’s just harder to get equipment there or the winds are different or the amount of snow is different,” he said.

As if every Staten Island street were Snake Hill.

As if Staten Island’s version of the storm were vastly different from what was seen in the other boroughs.

Now that he has finally conceded that people had good reason to be unhappy, he has settled on a “Gee, I wish I knew” theme.

“I cannot tell you for sure why it was a lot worse this time than the other times. We are going to take a look at everything we did and see where it can be done better,” Mr. Bloomberg said.

Frankly, that’s hard to swallow.

The Sanitation Department and emergency service have handled bigger snowstorms in the last decade or so and come through with flying colors.

Sanitation didn’t forget how to deal with major snowstorms. And the topography of the city didn’t change since the last time it had to.

The variable that made the Blizzard of 2010 the disaster it became isn’t the capabilities of city agencies or the lay of the land or the uniqueness of the storm itself. A blizzard is a blizzard after all.

It seems to us that what changed from past blizzards is the willingness of the city to mount a massive and timely cleanup effort throughout the five boroughs.

That’s not the result of some mysterious accident. It’s the result of a conscious policy decision probably driven by budgetary considerations. And it’s safe to assume the mayor was in on it.